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How to Prevent Package Theft

The online shopping market has become a booming industry today—earning a profitable margin for online retailers and creating convenience for customers.

By Carlos FoxPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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The online shopping market has become a booming industry today—earning a profitable margin for online retailers and creating convenience for customers. Yet the rise of online shopping has, unfortunately, come with a significant downside: package theft. With more deliveries popping up at front doors, porch pirates, as they are called, are taking advantage of and stealing packages.

In fact, nearly 20 percent of American homeowners have been a victim of package theft, according to a study by Ring, a home security company. With this in mind, U.S. Packaging and Wrapping conducted a study on the worst places in the U.S. and worst times of the year for package theft.

U.S. Packaging and Wrapping used Google Ads search data to conduct their research and used terms like "stolen package," "Amazon package stolen," and "USPS package stolen." They then took the state population into account by calculating a monthly rate for every 100,000 people.

According to this study, the organization found that the state with the lowest rate of package theft was Mississippi. The researchers surmised that this could be due in part to the state's high neighborhood security. Their findings also indicated that the top five states with the lowest rate of theft were all located in the South—Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky. The state with the highest rate of package theft is Wyoming, according to their results. The states following right after Wyoming were Vermont in second place, California in third, and Massachusetts in fourth. The researchers noted that California wasn't too surprising given California had the highest number of cities in all of the U.S. for a study on stolen Amazon packages.

The next part of their research found the worst time of the year for a package to be stolen. For their research, U.S. Packaging and Wrapping analyzed Google Trends data for the search term "package stolen" from January 2014 to January 2018. December ranked number one as the worst month to have a package stolen followed by November at number two and January in third. The results are unsurprising as these three months are typically when online retailers make the most sales given the holiday season. May turned out to be the month least likely to have a package stolen with April and March ranking just before May. This analysis of the spring months could indicate customers are letting their wallets breathe after being hit by a heavy winter shopping period.

Tips On Preventing Package Theft

With all this information in mind, how can you avoid having your online deliveries stolen? Below are a few tips to consider to keep thieves from stealing your online shopping goods.

  • Provide detailed instructions for the delivery driver.
  • Have a signature be mandatory in order to collect your package.
  • Opt for an expedited delivery so you know exactly when your package is coming and you can have someone be at home to collect it.
  • Ship to a commercial address like your work's office as opposed to your home. Often, delivery drivers will drop off packages inside the location.
  • Install wireless home security cameras to catch thieves in the act and pursue legal action. These cameras can help you check on your package and send you alerts regarding your home's safety. A variety of options exist with features providing two-way communication, cloud storage, high-definition video, and night vision. Smart security cameras have risen in popularity recently as a way to prevent porch piracy, deter burglars, check on pets, or use as a baby monitor.

Online shopping is surely not something that is going to vanish any time soon, but hopefully, these tips can help you escape package theft.

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